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26 October 2025 Greetings from Porto Portugal. My trip to Portugal with my friend John continued this week. There’s a lot of detail here. I hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoy sharing the memories as we’ve traveled north from Lisbon. Monday: We took a ride share to the Belem neighborhood in Lisbon,…

19 October 2025 Greetings from Lisbon, Portugal. I’m here with my friend John from Denver. More on that after a weekly update. For my pending visa application, I finally got my fingerprints sent to the FBI this week. I had arranged for Fedex to pick up the envelope last Friday. But with the heavy rains,…

12 October 2025 It’s been a full week. The big news is that I got a new set of fingerprints for an updated FBI background check. I’ll get that mailed via FedEx tomorrow. I have no idea what impact there will be, nor for how long, the US government shutdown will affect that process. But…

5 October 2025 First, the big news is that I’m starting to plan my next visit to the U.S. At this point (no airfare had been purchased), I’m planning to arrive the 9th of December and return to Spain around the 17th of January. Vicente is looking at the possibility of joining me for the…

28 September 2025 Visa and Travel plans Up until a few weeks ago, I had been planning to return to the US in January to file for the new visa application. I have always known that if I change my visa to a Nonlucrative Visa (NLV/ retiree visa) after my student visa expires, that the…

22 September 2025 Not a lot of news this week. The big news is that I have learned that if I apply for my non-lucrative visa (retiree visa) from the US before my current student visa expires in 2 January 2026, I can deduct 50% of my time here (one of two years) towards my…

14 September 2025 Water at home: I am looking for a new apartment  When I leased my apartment in February 2024, there were some issues that needed addressing. The kitchen, my bathroom and the guest bathroom all have damaged tiles.  Biggest on that list was the guest bathroom with numerous floor tiles that were cracked…

8 September 2025 It’s been a while since I posted. When I slow down like this, it’s usually because I’ve been home sick and not doing much to talk about. Such is the case. However, I’m doing much better. After x-rays, blood tests, etc, etc, they determined I had a respiratory infection. It just left…

17 August 2025 My week took me to the south of Spain for a few days, to the town of Vera. My friend, Medi from Paris, had rented an apartment and invited me to join him Tuesday- Thursday, as his “couchsurfing” guest. For all the guests, I have hosted, I had never stayed as the…

11 August 2025 I went to a different beach on Thursday. From the bus stop, I had to walk through a national park to get to the beach. l’Albufera is one of Valencia’s treasures. It was a hot, humid day. And I passed this interesting plant and I had to share it with you. The…